Chapter 1Call Me A Gold Digger

The moment I rejected my supervisor Braden’s advances, he weaponized the company-wide Slack channel.

"Word to the wise: watch out for women like this."

"She’s a serial grifter. Targets guys, ropes them in, and then bleeds them dry with blackmail. I personally know over thirty victims."

The thread exploded into an immediate feeding frenzy of righteous cruelty.

"Disgusting. How did someone like this even pass a background check?"

"Who knows how many beds she’s run through. Good luck to the keyboard warriors willing to catch whatever she has."

In my past life, panic choked me. I fought back frantically, tears streaming, typing desperate rebuttals that no one believed.

Braden was prepared. He manufactured a seamless web of fake invoices, doctored bank statements, and forged chat logs, broadcasting them across social media. The viral mob destroyed us. The harassment triggered my father’s fatal heart attack; the relentless terror drove my mother into a psychiatric ward. Fired, humiliated, and utterly broken, I emptied every cent of my savings into Braden’s pockets just to buy his promised silence—only to drown in the suffocating noise of public hatred.

Then I opened my eyes, pulled back to the exact minute of my refusal.

The venom in the company chat scrolled past, word for word.

This time, my hands didn't shake. I leaned in and typed a single line.

"You caught me. Professional con artist at your service—I’ve scammed hundreds at this point."

...

* * *

"So what if I’m a gold-digging grifter? Is there a corporate policy against it?"

I hit enter. The message dropped into the general channel like a stone into dark water.

The barrage of insults halted abruptly. The chat froze in dead silence.

Sixty seconds later, the dam broke.

"Holy shit, she actually admitted it. Zero shame."

"A few hundred guys? That’s not a dating history, that’s public transit. Wonder if there’s anything left down there, lmao!"

"Get her out of the building before she spreads something contagious through the vents."

The vitriol rolled down my screen in a toxic wave. I leaned back in my ergonomic desk chair, watching the text scroll with cold, detached clarity.

A direct message pinged. It was Braden.

"Lila, you think going nuclear is going to save you?"

"You think playing the lunatic will make everyone back off?"

"What I put in the channel is nothing compared to what I’ve got in my archive. Explicit hotel footage, timestamps, everything. If you have any survival instinct left, wire me fifteen thousand dollars right now. I’ll post an update saying it was a misunderstanding."

A second later, the text vanished. He unsent it immediately, leaving zero paper trail.

A quiet, bitter laugh escaped my throat.

He had run the exact same extortion playbook in my previous life. Back then, desperate to salvage my shred of dignity, I emptied my accounts and begged family for loans to pay him off. The second the transfer cleared, he screenshot the receipt, posted it to the thread, and framed it as hush money—the ultimate admission of guilt.

I wasn’t that terrified girl anymore.

I pressed the voice memo icon, my tone dripping with honeyed sarcasm. "Isn't fifteen grand a little insulting? With hundreds of victims under my belt, my damages are easily in the millions. Why not ask for fifty?"

Silence hung on his end. I could almost picture him staring at his phone, caught off balance.

"Don't get cute with me, Lila! I will burn your reputation so deep into the ground you won't even find work pouring coffee!"

Sent, read, deleted. A ghost on the screen.

Before I could lock my phone, a calendar invite popped up from Jocelyn, the Senior Director of HR: "Immediate Consultation."

I walked into her corner office. Jocelyn didn't even look up from her desk; she slammed her Montblanc pen down on the mahogany surface, letting out a sharp, theatrical sigh.

"Have you completely lost your mind, Lila?" She turned her sharp, mascara-rimmed gaze onto me. "Look at the absolute circus you created in the general channel. You’re dragging the company’s name through the gutter."

"Jocelyn," I said evenly, "Braden initiated a targeted smear campaign in a public work forum. Defamation and hostile work environment claims fall under HR jurisdiction, don't they?"

Jocelyn let out a humorless bark of laughter. "Defamation? Braden is a top-tier performer and one of the most reliable managers in this division. Why would a respectable man invent stories about you out of thin air? Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. You brought this attention on yourself."

"So company policy dictates that whoever files a baseless accusation first is automatically the victim?"

"Don't twist my words with high-school debate tactics!" Jocelyn rolled her eyes, drumming her manicured nails on the desk. "I have zero bandwidth to coddle your damaged-innocent routine. Sign a voluntary resignation letter right now and leave with a shred of grace. If you force the company to terminate you for gross misconduct and post a formal notice, you will never pass another background check in this industry."

I shook my head, my posture immovably calm. "I will not sign a resignation. I have violated zero workplace policies. If you want me gone, you’ll have to fire me without cause."

Jocelyn’s mask slipped, exposing a harsh, vicious scowl. "Don't push your luck. Braden has concrete documentation of your financial fraud. Keep making a scene, and we will turn this over to the police. I’m offering you an exit door—take it before you ruin your life completely."

I held her gaze, unblinking. "Call the police. Seriously. Let detectives dig into every bank record, every device, and every account. Let’s see who’s actually committing fraud."

Jocelyn recoiled slightly, unsettled by my absolute lack of panic. In her experience, an exposed fraud was supposed to weep, beg, and plead for mercy.

She ground her teeth, her finger thrusting toward the door. "Fine. You want to play hardball? As of right now, you are placed on indefinite unpaid suspension. Clear out your desk and get out of my sight."

I stood up, smoothed down the front of my blazer, and walked out.

This was merely the opening gambit in Braden’s grand design. And predictably, by the time my heels hit the carpet outside her office, an all-company email blast hit every inbox: "Notice of Immediate Termination and Code of Conduct Violation regarding Lila Michell."